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Starting an eCommerce business in 2017 is fairly simple. All you need to do is find your niche, choose the right platform and follow a quick and self-explanatory tutorial. Still, although starting may be fairly easy, growing your business, making it self-sustainable and of course triumphing over your closest competitors is something completely different. So, here are five simple tips on how you could effectively grow an eCommerce business.

1. Target other demographicsWhile most guides will advise you to focus on a single major demographic in order to get the most effect, every once in a while, it might be worth your while to reach out to other audiences as well. Sure, you are still better off focusing the majority of your resources on those you deem as low-hanging fruits or qualified leads, but it doesn’t hurt to make an extra effort and add an additional objective to your outreach plans.

2. OutsourceGrowing your business can cost a small fortune and expanding your business rarely seems cost-effective in the long run. Furthermore, trying to do everything in-house gives you a lot less flexibility, which is why it might be a much better option to simply outsource. While there are those who hate the idea of outsourcing core-tasks, in most situations, this is where the greatest savings can be made. Furthermore, if you, for example, operate out of Sydney, you can use a Sydney-based warehouse storage solution instead of purchasing a warehouse. This way, you can also save a lot of time and effort on hiring, handpicking and training a team. Overall, whether or not outsourcing is resource-efficient may be quite situational but it is always more flexible and more scalable.

3. Market your most popular productsAnother simple trick that will help you grow your eCommerce business lies in your marketing focus. More often than not there will be so many different items in your stock that you won’t have enough time, space or resources to market all of them properly. This is why, in order to get the best results, you need to figure out which of your products are the most popular ones and focus on promoting them individually. This way, you will not only boost sales of your flagship products but you’ll also increase the chance of driving attention towards your other products as well.

4. Use affiliate marketingWhether or not traffic is a vanity metric is up to a lot of debate. Still, one thing is certain – without traffic, there is no profit. for example, your conversion rate can be 100 percent, but if you only get a few visitors on your website every month, it won’t amount to much. One of the ways you can boost your traffic is through a cunning use of affiliate marketing and PPC (pay-per-click). Even though some dislike the idea of paying for visitors, no one can dispute the effectiveness of this method.

5. Focus on return businessFinally, you need to keep in mind that the thing that will generate you the most profit is not new conversions but return business. In fact, according to research, 8 percent of your return customers are responsible for over 40 percent of all your profit. For this, however, you need to have great analytics tools and an even greater post-sale follow-up technique. Here, methods such as email marketing or even traditional telemarketing are highly recommended.

ConclusionWith these several growth hacks, you are bound to set your eCommerce on the right path towards success. Not only are these techniques optimal for creating some great immediate results but they also excel in helping you scale a lot better than your current business model. The best thing here is the fact that the above-listed five are nothing more than a tip of the iceberg and there are many other tricks left for you to discover.

The way people shop changed a lot in the last few years and that’s why each year we’re getting more and more web shops. Nowadays, you can buy practically anything online meaning there’s a lot of competition in the eCommerce business and every good tip matters for eCommerce website owners. Here are the top 10.

Have and use your USP

What sets you apart from your competitors and why would the customers choose you are two main questions to ask yourself. Once you do that, you’ll know your unique selling point (USP) and how to use it. Always keep the customer in mind – your products or services should benefit them, so that can become your most effective tool for advertising.

Provide security

Although internet shopping has been around for a while, people are still dubious about payments and they want everything clean and transparent. Trusted payment options must be on display on your website so make sure you put it alongside the banner. It’s for your customer’s peace of mind – show them they can trust you and they will be yours for good.

Don’t forget about SEO

Having the best site in the world means nothing if people can’t find it online so doing a search engine optimization should be a priority. Do a research on keywords to make sure you use the hot ones on your website, optimize your pages, and be active on social media platforms. Be aware that poorly implemented SEO can damage your business so hiring a professional to do it is a good idea.

Offer live chat

To avoid your business being declared as impersonal you must include live chat on your website as a good alternative to face-to-face contact. Keep your email and phone number on display (and reply timely) but it’s even better to establish a live chat feature and show your customers you’re always there for them. Nothing beats talking to a real person!

Ensure photo quality

Whether you’re selling products or services, making your website visually pretty is essential. No one will decide to buy a product from a blurry or badly photoshopped picture, so pay attention to quality. Your gallery should be easy to navigate while products should be visible from all sides. Zoom option is also great, so keep that in mind when posting your images.

Leave logistics to the pros

If you’re selling products, your biggest problem will be storage, inventory, packing and shipping your goods and that’s why it’s a good idea to leave it to the experts. Ecommerce logistics experts can receive, manage and dispatch your goods so you won’t have to worry about that. It’ll improve your customers’ satisfaction as well because they’ll know their order is in good hands.

Encourage reviews

You know what they say: only those who did something wrong are afraid of the reviews. But the thing is: real people’s experiences are valuable to your business. Nothing beats a satisfied customer since people will always take other people’s words when it comes to shopping online. It’s good for the SEO as well because reviews make unique content for your website thus making the search engines happy.

Optimize search option

Practice showed that site search users are more likely to convert than the average user so optimizing this feature is a must. The search box should be easy to spot, big enough, and provide autocomplete options for maximum results. There are some other tricks that can make searching your site a better experience, so make sure you take this advice and implement what you can.

Deal with out of stock products

Anyone who has ever shopped online knows that out of stock is the worst thing you can see on the ecommerce website. Knowing how to deal with this is important because that’s the way to address the biggest issue from the customers’ point of view. If your product is no longer available, link similar items to the page or contact link to the manufacturer so your customers will know there’s hope.

Create buying guides

For each category you have on your ecommerce website, there should be a detailed guide for shopping. For example, if you’re selling clothes, offering style and trend guides to your customers is a nice idea. If you’re selling wallpapers, providing home décor ideas, tips and tricks is a must. This will enrich the shopping experience and leave your customers in delight.

Think of your website as of the heart and soul of your business and make it both pretty and functional. That’s what keeps the customers coming and, more importantly, staying loyal to your business.

One of the most common business ideas these days is running an eCommerce company – an online store that exists only on the web. It can be a fantastic way to make a living if you know a market that still has a need for a new online store and if you know how to put everything together so that you can sell your products at a profit.

As you might imagine, this is where outsourcing can be of immense help. In fact, the vast majority of ecommerce stores are built on outsourcing various aspects of their organization and today, we will be talking about the most common parts of the ecommerce experience that business owners outsource.

Logistics

In the vast majority of cases, ecommerce companies will outsource their logistics. In fact, there are only a handful of ecommerce companies that do their logistics themselves and these are the world’s largest ecommerce companies such as Amazon, for example. For everyone else, it comes down to third-party logistics companies, also known as 3PL.

This way, you are outsourcing your warehousing, your transport and your deliveries. This both ensures that you get professionals taking care of your stock at all times and also that you will not be spending all of your money on your own warehouses, trucks and delivery people.

Simply put, not outsourcing your logistics makes no sense in the ecommerce arena.

IT

Since an eCommerce company will exist almost entirely online, it goes without saying that IT and everything that goes with it will be the majority of the operation. Some eCommerce owners decide to outsource one part of it while others let their outsourced partners handle the most of it.

For example, there are people who decide on Shopify’s domain registration, hosting and the basic package and then they hire someone to upgrade their solutions so that their shop does not look like just another Shopify store (not that there is anything wrong with them).

Other people go to web design companies and they have their store developed from scratch. Sometimes, ecommerce websites grow so quickly that the owner has to hire someone to handle the maintenance.

There are innumerable variants to this, and when ecommerce owners decide to outsource their IT, they need to ensure they are hiring the right people. This is where Globality Consulting and companies like that come in.

Customer Service

For people who are not really familiar with how ecommerce stores work, it may seem that they can operate without any customer service people. The customers just click on what they wish to buy, this is recorded and the delivery is made, right? Couldn’t be any simpler?

In reality, however, there is as much need for customer service in ecommerce stores as there is in traditional, brick and mortar ones. People have questions about products and since they cannot hold them in their hand, they have even more questions. On top of this, many shoppers do their purchasing outside of regular work hours and it is not like you can hang a sign Sorry, we’re closed on your website.

This is why a very large number of ecommerce companies outsource at least one part of their customer service experience, the live one. It is quite difficult to organize three 8-hour shifts if you are not exactly teaming with a budget for such serious customer service.

Marketing

Ecommerce takes a lot of marketing to work. You start with nothing but a website. No one knows anything about it. No one knows it exists.

You have to change that.

For most ecommerce owners, marketing is not a strength and they often find it much simpler to outsource marketing to an outside agency that will know exactly how to get an ecommerce website visible and attracting customers.

Once again, when hiring outsourced marketers, it is important to know how to recognize those that will do your website justice and deliver the results.

Closing Word

All in all, eCommerce involves quite a bit of outsourcing and it is essential you find reputable partners you can rely on. Read a few more articles on the Globality Consulting blog and pick up a few tricks.